In recent years, carrier-class Ethernet has emerged as a significant technology with respect to transport of traffic over Metro Area Networks (MANs). For example, in the United States, the demand for Ethernet services is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 20%. The demand is projected to exceed $5 billion by 2012. Such growth and increasing demand are partly driven by the need for higher bandwidth for site-to-site and data center connectivity, scalability, performance, and security.